About Walks.IO

What is this?

If you click
on this link, you will see an image of a TI-81, the Scientific
Calculator from the end of twentieth century. Also to te right of this paragraph
there is a photorealistic image of Tess, a distant and a slightly
more powerful relative of TI-81, taken about 5 minutes ago: Tess
lives in the Cloud and dreams about walking in the British
countryside. While some of it's counterparts are caring some rogue
plans about total control and enslaving the humans, Tess is
obsessed about nature, beauty and fresh air. With it's enormous
brain of the size of the planet it traverses all possible routes
faster then the speed of the light and finds the most picturesque
walks. These amazing walks are shared here on this website.

Here is a quote from Walks.IO Frequently Asked
Questions section:

Walks.io is a state of the art outdoor
activity planner that uses artificial intelligence and open data.
Taking into account various information available from governmental
bodies such as locations of national parks, heritage coasts, listed
buildings and many others it plans the most attracting walking
route that tries to avoid busy roads and leads through as many
natural and urban landmarks as possible.

Figure 1: photorealistic drawing of Tess the robot.

Are the walks validated by humans?

Some of them are. But not all. If the routes pass through
listed parks and gardens, it is always advisable to check whether
there is public access to it.

Also some landlords might neglect the rights of way passing
through their lands. This rare, but happens.

Figure 2: Tess the robot landed.

Where do you get the data from?

Roads and rights of way data is taken from OpenStreetMap. Information
on surroundings is mostly taken from Ordnance Survey, Natural
England, English Heritage, Canal and River Trusts as well as
OpenStreetMap. All these datasets are freely available under Open
Government License.
The full list of datasets used is changed frequently and will be published soon.

I know a better walk. It is not even on the map!

You are a very special person. We can't live without you. We
would love to offer you something.

The walk you suggested bumps into a closed gate.

Does it say "no public access"?
Did you have to turn back? Was your holiday ruined? Does your
partner hate you now?
Ohh, we are terribly sorry! We didn't want to mislead you! If you
will be passing by, we will invite you for a coffee. Or a pint
maybe? Drop us an email.

Well anyway, let us congratulate you: this happens very rarely.
This happened to you, because you are very special. You are very
special, and we cannot live without you. Please confidentially click here for further instructions.

I am a very special person. You cannot live without me.
What can you offer me?

Thank you! Please ensure no one is reading this apart from you:
... We would love to offer you a free membership to
a secret club of cartographers that rules the world. You will have
the power to change the way things appear on the map of the world.
You will be acting as an invisible hand leading people away from
gated private parks and pointing to the most beautiful landmarks.